St. Landry democrat., 1887-12-31

with their principles, and this consistency
of cruelty affected her as woman hears the
sentence of the law and, preparing to suffer,
hates the judge and the code.
Little had she ever known of any but the
bunker world, lying here in the Maryland
crevices and hills.
Their love-feasts, with the abundant sweets
and buttered bre !, with cold meats and
savory song; their picnicking in the old meet
lighthouses or great barns, boys and girls,
old folks and hale folks, all sleeping together,
all joyous, all singing, all laughing, all be-
ieving, all thrifty and Woodworking.
There had she found a lover and hus-
band, who passed away with fever while
she was still childless and young. Her own
people had "moved away Vest and left her
in Maryland to the tender care of the con-
gregation-poor, but not without prospects,
until the dread mishap of the red shoes
shut the door of the meeting in her face
and closed forever the bright visions of her
| life.
! No hope of asecond husband and protector
came after this great blight of expulsion
from the church. The hand of care and
haggardness was ever upon her, and she saw
this posthumous child of its father grow
up with an apathy that was the fixed ex-
preston of a broken heart.
Dunkers and Quakers like to have no
poor, but bunker wealth is not often the ex-
hibition of luxury or even independence of
| toll
There was a patch of ground redeemed
from the South Mountains stony sides
which Hettys father had cleared and put a
barn upon it and also a log house. giving his
ambitious flight of building away to his
horses and other Stock" and keeping to
himself and family that structure which
cost no money.
| The pair of red shoes had been the first in
stance of taste ever to enter that primitive
dwelling Of whitewashed logs, and at this
single tribute to beauty religion had fled
away.
In the apathy of her mother the child
grew up to superintend the patch of ground,
taking an indentured boy from the poor
house" to help her, and sometimes giving a
share Of the crops to some mountaineer
laborer willing to work. The sun shone
warm on the thin soil and seemed to quicken
the very stones to vegetation.
Whatever grew red had mysterious al
fnity for this uncultivated child.
The red sumach was one of her crops, and
with its dust she learned to dye.
Along the stone walls and old worm
fences and high up on the long mountain s
name of sandstone the Virginia creeper and
poison oak turned their red leaves to Hetty' s
cheeks of apple red, and she took them
away from the guardianship of the red
scorpion. stealing along the rampant, or the
copper red, fattened head of that raging
snake.
The red bird in the bush seemed to her a
wonderful thing and she watched it for hours,
playing with its mate; and the species
of black bird with red wings could prey
upon her corn and. suffer no repulse from
her.
People saw her with garlands of red leaves
and berries, watching the red sunsets in the
west, or the rising of the sun from the noun
tain top, all CORY with color like a newborn
babe, and people said:
Its Hetty Red Shoes. She'll have no
color but red. It's because of the red shoes
she wore when little girl, and that turned
her mother out of meeting"
Time came when widow Frederick Arnold
lay down to die.
BURY me, Hetty," she said, fright here